U.S. skier Mikaela Shiffrin wins gold to become youngest slalom champion in Olympic history

Women's slalom gold medal winner Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States poses for photographers with the U.S. flag at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics on Friday. (Gero Breloer — The Associated Press)

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia >> Normally so composed, so in control, so not-very-teenlike on and off the slopes, Mikaela Shiffrin suddenly found herself in an awkward position halfway through the second leg of the Olympic slalom.

Guilty, perhaps, of charging too hard as she swayed this way and that around the course's gates, Shiffrin briefly lost her balance. Her left ski rose too far off the snow. Her chance at a gold medal in the event she's dominated for two years was about to slip away.

"Yeah, that was pretty terrifying for me. There I was, I'm like, 'Grrreat. I'm just going to go win my first medal.' And then, in the middle of the run, I'm like, 'Guess not,'" the American said with a laugh Friday night. "So like, 'No. Don't do that. Do not give up. You see this through.' My whole goal was to just keep my skis moving."

Somehow, she did just that. Shiffrin stayed upright, gathered herself and, although giving away precious time there, was able to make a big lead from the first leg stand up. She won by more than a half-second to become, at 18, the youngest slalom champion in Olympic history.

"It's going to be something that I chalk up as one of my favorite experiences for the rest of my life," Shiffrin said. "But my life's not over yet."

No, Mikaela, it's not. It's only just beginning. Think about this for a moment: How might a typical American teenager have spent her Friday night? At the mall with friends? At a movie? At a high school dance?

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Shiffrin spent hers outracing the best skiers in the world down a floodlit Rosa Khutor course, knocking aside gates with her neon yellow pole handles. She was fastest in the first run, then sixth-fastest in the second, for a combined time of 1 minute, 44.54 seconds.

A pair of Austrians won silver and bronze: Marlies Schild was 0.53 behind Shiffrin, and Kathrin Zettel was 0.81 back. At 32, Schild is the oldest Olympic slalom medalist ever — old enough to have been someone Shiffrin looked up to as, well, even more of a kid than she is now.

"I won my age class," Schild joked.

She holds the record with 35 career World Cup slalom wins and now owns three Olympic medals in the discipline, two silvers and a bronze.

Olympic doping

GERMAN BIATHLETE, ITALIAN BOBSLEDDER TEST POSITIVE >> A top German biathlete and an Italian bobsledder were kicked out of the Sochi Olympics on Friday in the first doping cases of the Winter Games.

Former two-time Olympic gold medalist Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle tested positive for the stimulant methylhexanamine in both her "A'' and "B'' samples, the German Olympic Committee said.

The committee said she has been removed from the team and was being sent home.

Sachenbacher-Stehle — winner of two golds and three silvers in cross-country skiing at previous games — blamed the positive test on a nutritional supplement and said she had never knowingly taken performance-enhancing drugs.

"I am going through the worst nightmare that you can imagine, because I am unable to explain at all how there could be a positive test," she said in a statement.

The Italian Olympic Committee, meanwhile, announced that bobsledder William Frullani was ejected from the games after testing positive for the banned stimulant dimetylpentylamine in the athletes village on Tuesday.

Men's short track

Ahn wins 2 short track golds >> Viktor Ahn clapped as he crossed the finish line after leading Russia to Olympic gold in the 5,000-meter relay. His adopted country applauded right back, loudly cheering the short track skater the Russians have embraced as a new national hero.

"This will be the best Olympics in my life," he said in Korean. "I will never forget it."

Fittingly, Ahn capped his four-medal performance at the Sochi Games with gold in the relay, a medal he wanted the most as a way to unify the team he joined after forsaking his native South Korea.

"I'm so happy to be able to smile in the end with my teammates," he said.

Men's hockey

SWEDEN ADANCES TO FINALS >> Erik Karlsson scored the go-ahead goal late in the second period and Henrik Lundqvist stopped 25 shots, lifting Sweden over Finland 2-1 on Friday and into the gold-medal game at the Sochi Olympics.

The 2006 Olympic champions will face the United States or Canada on Sunday. The Finns will play the loser of the second semifinal for bronze on Saturday.

All the scoring came in the second, beginning with Olli Jokinen's goal from a sharp angle to the left of Lundqvist at 6:17 into the period that put Finland ahead 1-0.

Sweden's Loui Eriksson tied the game by finishing off a sweet sequence of passes midway through the period. Karlsson made it 2-1 with a slap shot from the middle of the ice just inside the blue line with 3:34 remaining.